Last week, the heat record from 2016 was broken several times. The global temperature was up to 17.23 degrees Celsius.
Berlin – During in many places several heat waves keep people breathless, the global heat record was broken several times last week. For five days in a row, the average global temperature was above the previous record of 2016, US scientists report, citing preliminary data. The hottest day in the world so far was Thursday (July 6) with 17.23 degrees.
According to the “Climate Reanalyzer” platform, the average global temperature was also above 17 degrees on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday and Friday. The University of Maine’s “Climate Reanalyzer” data goes back to 1979, and according to them, the last time a record 16.92 degrees Celsius was recorded was on August 13-14, 2016. Now this value has even been exceeded.
Heat record broken: Global temperature rose to 17.23 degrees
But that might not be enough. Further records are definitely possible in the next few weeks, explained Helge Gößling from the Alfred Wegener Institute (AWI) in Bremerhaven. In the course of the year, the highest values are typically reached around the end of July, since that is when the large land masses in the northern hemisphere are particularly heated. “By then, the records of the last few days could still be surpassed.”
According to experts, persistently exceptionally high temperatures on the sea surface of the North Atlantic and other sea regions are having an impact on the current development. This ensures that the near-surface air temperatures over the ocean and continents fluctuate around an increased background level, explained Gößling. This in turn increases the probability of new temperature records, both daily and monthly as well as annually. “As long as we are at such a high background level, we have to expect new records.”
In general, it is actually not surprising if higher temperature records are broken more and more often. “While global warming initially increased moderately from decade to decade, the rate of change has gradually increased,” said Goessling. One must therefore reckon with new records more and more frequently.
Heat record: El Niño contributes to high temperatures
Only on Thursday did the EU climate change service Copernicus report that June was the warmest in the world since records began in 1979. For the first time in several years, El Niño conditions are also prevailing in the tropical Pacific, as the World Weather Organization (WMO) recently announced. The natural weather phenomenon can also drive up the temperatures, which are already constantly rising in the course of the climate crisis – the record year 2016, for example, was an El Niño year.
“El Niño should already have a significant share in the globally averaged temperature records,” explained Gößling. “Because ocean heat has a longer memory and El Niño is likely to continue to develop, we can expect the second half of the year to remain warm globally.”
Typically, new global warming records for annual surface temperatures would not be reached until the second year of an El Niño event. “However, given current developments, it is becoming increasingly likely that the last record set in 2016 could be matched as early as 2023 – despite the moderate conditions at the end of a prolonged La Niña phase earlier in the year.”#
Global heat record: already broken in June
Already in June, the Copernicus Climate Change Service recorded record values on Thursday (June 15). The average global surface temperatures for the first days of June 2023 are “by far” the highest data for this month. Accordingly, the global average temperature exceeded 1.5 degrees in the first week of June. In the Paris climate agreement of 2015, almost all countries in the world agreed to pursue the 1.5 or 2 degree target. Accordingly, compared to pre-industrialization (1850 to 1900), the earth may only warm up by an average of 1.5 degrees. Many researchers now consider this goal to be unattainable.
The evaluations of “Climate Reanalyzer” are so-called reanalyses. “Reanalyses are a combination of observation data – satellite data, weather balloons, weather stations and a range of other measurements – and weather models,” explained AWI researcher Helge Gößling.
The “Climate Reanalyzer” is one of several platforms using reanalysis, such as “ERA5” of the European Center for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts (ECMWF). Due to differences in the data feed and the models used, the data sets could differ noticeably locally and in the short term – the larger the areas considered, the smaller the differences typically become. “With the globally averaged temperature anomaly, differences are usually very small.” (jv with material from the dpa)
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